No Man's Sky: Getting Nanites Quickly (2024)

Nanite Clusters are a valuable resource in No Man's Sky used to upgrade your gear. Harder to come by than Units, the game's primary currency, Nanites are what most mid-game and late-game players are searching for.

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Nanites are used to purchase blueprints and upgrade modules for your Exosuit, Exocraft, and your various starships. You'll also need Nanites to upgrade your multi-tools to the highest tier available. How do you get loads of Nanites quickly? Here's a quick guide on one of the easiest ways to earn thousands of Nanites: scrapping ships, also known as "flipping."

Updated August 26th by Harry Alston:We're updating this guide to refine the method with some extra stats about buying and selling ships for Nanites, as well as to update it for the recent Prisms update. We're also including a new method to farm Nanites via Curious Deposits.

How To Farm Nanites Via Curious Deposits

A super simple method to get Nanites in No Man's Sky (without flipping ships) is to hunt for Curious Deposits.

• Curious Deposits spawn on all types of planets. Hot, cold, dangerous, whatever. If you find a planet with Curious Deposits it's likely that other planets in the system will also have Curious Deposits on the surface.
• You can find Curious Deposits via your Analysis Visor. You're looking for a Gold pop-up icon, like the one shown in the image above.
• You can destroy Curious Deposits with a mining laser, Optical Mining laser, or a Plasma Cannon. When you shoot them they do roll away, so build a little sort of fence area around them to make it easier to mine them.
• Curious Deposits drop Runaway Mould which then refines into Nanites.

Some general tips for finding and mining Curious Deposits include setting up a save spot to reset the spawn for Curious Deposits, you can find the Deposits by scouting close to the planet surface with a fast ship or Exocraft with a scanning ability, and lastly, you should optimize your mining laser to get better yields with the Optical Drill. That's a 50 per cent bonus chance to get extra Runaway Mould.

How To Earn Nanites By Flipping Ships In A Space Station

Scrapping ships for Nanites, or flipping, is a mechanic players have been using to make Nanites for a while now. The method is pretty simple: you buy a ship, scrap it, and then sell the various Upgrade Modules for Nanites. Rinse and repeat.

No need to refine lots of materials, no need to do any cooking... scrapping and flipping ships is probably the most enjoyable way to farm Nanites in No Man's Sky.

Of course, if you want to maximize your efficiency (and your Units) you'll probably want to make sure that you're scrapping the right ships, at the right station, for the right price. For a full set of Exocraft upgrades, for example, you're going to need a lot of Nanites. Here's what you need to know.

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The Best System To Look For Ships To Scrap

You're on the lookout for ships that are at least B-Class, typically Shuttles and Fighters, although Explorer ships can also be worth your time. These are common in systems that are at a Tier 3 economy rating.

This includes any system with these terms attached:

• Wealthy
• Opulent
• Prosperous
• High Supply
• Flourishing
• Booming
• Affluent
• Advanced

It also helps if the combat level is low, as these areas typically have busier space stations with more frequent ship arrivals.

What Ships Should You Scrap For Nanites?

Not every ship is going to worth scrapping for Nanites, either because the price is too high or the chance of a decent amount of Upgrade Modules is much smaller. Here's a rundown of the kind of ships you're looking to scrap.

• B-Class or above
  • These are more likely to have expensive Upgrade Modules that will net you more Nanites.
• Ships that cost three million units or below
  • Even if you're the richest citizen in No Man's Sky, the Unit to Nanite Cluster conversion isn't worth it on very expensive ships, unless that ship is an S-Class, in which case you should always make the purchase, whatever the price.
• Ignore Haulers/Transport ships.
  • Focus on ships like Fighters and Shuttles, they have a better chance of more expensive Upgrade Modules.

The Best Method To Use When Scrapping Ships For Nanites

Working through scrapping ships isn't too difficult. You need a starting bank of, probably close to 70 or 80 million Units in total. This means you can sit in the hangar for a long time and scrap ships for hours if you want to. However, you can start with less and work your way up slowly.

Most of the ships you'll be buying will be around two or three million units. You can sell the various materials you scrap from the ships, but overall you'll be losing Units, turning them straight into Nanites via the Upgrade Modules, hence the preference for a decent starting bank.

Head to a Space Station in a wealthy system and make your way to the hangar. Ships arrive in waves. You want to check each ship as it arrives. The visor on your Exosuit can tell you what class the ship is. You're looking for B-class or above ships. When you see one, jump down and purchase the ship from the pilot that steps out.

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How To Scrap The Ships - What To Sell And What To Keep

Scrapping ships give you a bunch of different resources. You should scrap everything inside, holding on to items and materials you want to keep and getting rid of anything else to balance out the Credits loss.

For farming pure Nanites all you need to hold on to are the Upgrade Modules. These will be worth various amounts of Nanites, ranging from 200 to 3,000 and beyond.

Sell them at the station to the Technology Merchant. This will be under the "Purchase Upgrade Modules", but switch to sell and then get rid of everything.

On a good day, at the right station, and with decent inventory management, you can make tens of thousands of Nanites every 30 minutes.

Other Methods To Farm Nanites In No Man's Sky

There are lots of other methods for farming Nanites in the game.

• You can find Nanites lying around while you're exploring, like searching for abandoned buildings and various other PoIs on planets.
• Always search through Damaged Machinery when you see it while exploring, it has a chance to drop Nanites.
• Sentinel can drop Nanites when they are destroyed. Check out our guide for dealing with Sentinels here.
• Nanites are rewarded for completing certain missions.
• Useless Residual Goop? Nope. Through multiple refining processes of Goop > Viscous Fluids > Living Slime > Runaway Mould, you can turn that Goop into Nanites. Yes. Really.

However, probably the quickest way to get lots of Nanites is to scrap ships. Everyone will have their favorite way of doing things, and if you prefer hunting for Goop and spending time in front of the refiner, then go ahead.

NEXT: No Man's Sky: How To Find Crashed Ships